23. Sage
TWENTY-THREE
SAGE
BACK THEN
“Sage!” A thunderous shout ricochets around the gas station I work at. The store is empty, and it hasn’t had a customer in hours, so the loud shout makes me jump. I spin toward the door, clutching my chest. My heart is slamming against my ribs.
“Jesus.” My heart rate starts to settle when I spot Mac and Luna. Mac’s grinning and Luna looks sheepish, twisting her pink hair between her fingers.
“Oops, sorry,” Mac says, not looking sorry in the slightest. “Come on. Everyone is waiting,” he tells me, but he’s jumping up onto the front counter, kicking his feet against the Marlboro sign under the register. Luna moves to stand at his side, resting her arm against his thigh.
“I’m at work, Mac,” I say, looking around as if to prove where they found me. Mac groans dramatically, throwing his head back to amplify the performance.
“Urgghhh. But it’s eight-twenty. You get off at eight o’ clock! Meaning you can leave now,” he argues, fixing his gaze back on mine; green eyes filled with hope and something else. But he looks away before I can figure out what.
He’s been weird lately. He never holds my stare like he used to. Even when he’s trying to get me to go along with his dumbass pranks. He used to stare me down with so much intensity I could never back down. But in the past few months, something changed.
We still hang out every day. He still climbs into my room at night. But it’s different somehow, and it’s driving me insane that I can’t pinpoint what.
“Yeah, well, Katie hasn’t shown up yet.” I shrug, playing off the weirdness I feel. I try to get him to look at me, but he finds the hole in his jeans too interesting to look at me.
Lunas eyes flick from me to Mac, and back again. Her face is doing weird things, too. Like she knows something I don’t. She’s catching me staring at her now, and she beams a fake smile.
“We can wait,” she says, leaning further into Mac.
“How did you two even get here, anyways?” I ask, returning to the menial task of restocking. I stare down at the box of Trojan condoms and quickly shove them onto the hook. When neither of them answers after a prolonged silence, I look over.
Luna and Mac are locked into a heated stare. Luna’s eyebrows rise and fall with some hidden message, and my stomach twists.
Am I jealous of Luna? I ask myself, and the terrible realization dawns. I am. Mac is staring back at her, and I want him to look at me like that again! I want his eyes to be on me. He hasn’t been distant exactly, but it feels like he’s been pulling away.
Yeah, he’ll come and climb into my bed, but he’s always gone when I wake up. He’ll shift away from me whenever we touch, and I hate it. I don’t know why it bothers me as much as it does. But it fucking sucks.
“Sorry what?” Luna asks sweetly, finally ending their standoff. They both turn their focus to me, but Mac looks…is he blushing? What the hell. Mac never blushes.
I swallow down the jealousy. “How did you get here?” I repeat my question from before.
“Harley,” Mac says, jerking his thumb towards the parking lot. That’s when I see Harley’s car parked right up front. Sawyer grins and waves from the front seat. I lift my hand with a small acknowledgment.
Sawyer is cool, I guess. We don’t really have anything in common. It’s not the gay thing, if that’s what you’re thinking. I don’t give a fuck about that, it’s just him.
“I can meet you at the docks. Whenever Katie feels like showing up.” Luna and Mac exchange another look I can’t read.
Another twist of my stomach. I want to tell Mac to stay and wait with me.
Get him alone. I feel like we’re never alone anymore.
But I don’t. I bite the inside of my cheek to stop the words from coming out.
“Ok. We were gonna grab Marian’s Pizza before we go. Want us to get you anything?” Mac asks, dropping down from the counter. I shake my head and mumble a terse no thanks before grabbing another box of condoms.
“Cool, see ya soon.”
When they’re gone, and Harley’s car is backing out of the parking lot, I take a deep breath, trying to clear my head. Trying to ignore the jealousy that’s flaring in my chest.
Mac’s my best friend. He’ll always be my best friend. Lying to myself that relationships change. We’re seventeen. We couldn’t share my tiny bed forever. I tell myself I don’t feel disappointed.